Here are my latest ladies, Kate and Lola. Kate is a modern dancer and singer who composes music about heroes from the only novel by Emily Bronte (sorry - no patience for figuring out the keyboard witchcraft required for oomlots!) If that sounds familiar to you, then hopefully you are a Kate Bush fan and might agree with me that this dollie looks a bit like her? My husband guessed, but he knows I'm a huge fan so maybe he was just being kind!
I made her parasol from cotton, card-stock and lace...I think it makes her look very elegant!
Her skirt is dupioni silk, which is still my all-time favourite material.
This is Lola, who is holding a small heart in honour of Valentine's day. Someday soon I will make another anatomically correct heart like I did for my first big doll, Bridget (there are photos of it my 'large doll' photo album.)
Lola's skirt is also dupioni silk. I certainly dress the dolls better than myself!
This ladies will go in the shop this weekend...
Also: Wheee! I finally got my new book about making ball-jointed dolls, Yoshida Style, all the way from Japan.
It is indeed in Japanese, which I don't speak or read, but it has so many great pictures that it has already given me tons of great ideas. I don't think I'll actually have time to attempt a ball-jointed doll (very complex!) until summer when my course load lightens, but I can still apply some of his instructions to my regular doll-making.
And because I love Kate Bush so much, and because she is such a good companion to me as I make my dolls, I found this video for her song "Wuthering Heights." It's rare that one comes across mainstream cultural figures as truly odd and eccentric as Kate Bush...watch this video and you'll see what a delightfully freaky lady she is. People always talk about how cheezy and commercial the 80s were, but they hold a special place in my heart because I really wonder if someone as bizarre as Kate Bush or Robert Smith could be 'famous' today. Not that being famous matters much, but it's pretty cool that these people were ever as popular as they were. Well, enough of my ranting...here she is in all her oddball glory!